It's All Fun and Games 'Till the Baby DenDen Rings
by thermopylae
Summary: Sanji rethinks his relationship with Nami when a piece of his past reappears. Chapter 8 up: Sanji copes with crisis the only way he knows how with food.
1. Chapter 1

**Same old, same old**: Me no own "Own Piece."

Notes: Set between Sky Piea and Davy Back Fight. This is my first fanfiction in a long while, and my first ever "One Piece" fic, so I apologize for the stilted style. I feel like I haven't got a handle on the rhythm yet

It would be another ten minutes before tea was ready. Sanji was in the kitchen, making it. It was an impossibly lovely day, one of those that happened sometimes even on the Grand Line. The sea was deep blue and white, the sun was warm, the kitchen was cool. In between the cutting and dicing and arranging just so, Sanji stole peeks out of the porthole, thinking pleasant idle thoughts. He did not hear the Baby DenDen ring in the pocket of his jacket, which he'd left on the deck.

Usopp did. While the rest of the crew - minus Robin, who never looked up from her book - stood around Sanji's jacket in a curious huddle, Usopp took action. In a flash he was across the deck and clinging to the mast for dear life. "Who is it?" he quavered. "Who's calling us? Why does Sanji still have that Baby DenDen? It can't be safe. I heard somewhere that you can transmit poison gas through DenDen Mushis!"

"Really?" asked Luffy, his eyes going even wider than usual. "Can you transmit meat?"

"Idiot!" Usopp dashed over to smack his captain over the head, then ran back to the mast. "Whoever heard of sending meat through DenDen Mushi lines! That's just dumb."

Nami rolled her eyes. "Poison gas isn't much better. Someone go get Sanji so he can answer the Baby DenDen."

Luffy immediately darted around to block her way. "No!" he cried. "Sanji's making food for us. It wouldn't be right to break his concentration. Let's just answer it and tell Sanji about it later..._after_ we eat."

"It's rude to answer someone else's Baby DenDen," Nami said severely. She put her hands on her hips warningly.

"Yeah, there's no way I'm answering it," Chopper chimed in. He was clutching his hat nervously, looking as if he'd have liked to join Usopp at the mast. "I don't want to be hit in the face with poison gas _or_ meat!"

This time it was Zoro who took action. In one smooth, firm motion, he snatched the Baby DenDen out of the jacket pocket and held it in front of his face, palm-up and rock-sure. Not a line in the swordsman's body gave away his inner doubt. Zoro had never used a Baby DenDen before. It really looked too small to be used at all - and where was the mouthpiece, anyway? Could the other person even hear him on something so small? There was just no reason why a Baby DenDen should even work. Whatever. He was Roronoa Zoro. He would not be bested by some blasted bug. "Hello?" he barked into it, rather too loudly.

"That's right." Usopp breathed a sigh of relief. "Let Zoro answer it. He trains for this kind of stuff."

"Zoro is so cool," Chopper agreed lustily. "It must be great to be able to answer DenDen Mushis without worrying."

Zoro, for his part, had his head cocked to the side, his brows furrowed with irritated confusion. There was been no answer from the Baby DenDen. Zoro was no expert on this kind of stuff, but he was pretty sure DenDen conversations, even ones held on puny runt DenDens, went both ways. "Hello?" he said again, a little more forcefully. "Answer me, jerk."

"Hello?"

Everyone took a nervous step back. Zoro jumped a little when he realized this did not put any distance between himself and the Baby DenDen.

"This isn't Sanji, is it." The voice on the other end was low and smooth and self-assured, and very cultured. It was the voice of someone who wore expensive clothing and ate expensive meals, and _paid_ for them. It was also the voice of someone decidedly female.

A woman was calling Sanji on a Baby DenDen. The Straw Hat Pirates had had a lot of adventures since coming to the Grand Line, but nothing had quite prepared them for an event of this magnitude. Chopper joined Usopp at the mast, while Nami clutched the ship's rail for support. Robin finally looked up; she and Luffy simply stared. Zoro realized that the situation rested on his shoulders. His broad and _more than capable_ shoulders, the swordsman told himself sternly. He cleared his throat. "No, it isn't," Zoro growled back into the Baby DenDen. "Who is this? I can, uh, get him for you." He ignored Luffy's anguished "Nooooo!" in the background.

"Do that, please."

"Why don't you tell us your name first?"

"That's kind of you, but I can tell him myself."

Zoro could hear a cigarette tapped precisely against an ashtray. Nami looked back and forth between him and the Baby DenDen, her hands still at the rail but her mouth fighting hard against a grin. He didn't have to turn around, either, to know the others were doing the same. Zoro was losing a battle. With a woman. On a _Baby DenDen_. This was a humiliation not to be borne. Zoro beetled his brow even further, to irritated irritation, and was about to make a really cutting remark when Luffy stretched out one rubbery arm and nicked the Baby DenDen from his hand. Zoro ground his teeth a little before following the waving, elongated arm back to its source.

Luffy stood in the middle of the deck, his expression set, legs planted firmly, and the Baby DenDen in his palm. "I'm Luffy, the captain of this ship," he was saying seriously into the Baby DenDen. As one, the others - minus Robin, who didn't do that kind of thing - gave inward groans and buried their faces in their hands. "I'm going to be the Pirate King," Luffy continued, oblivious to the general feeling of doom that had settled over the Going Merry. "If you're not going to tell us your name, Lady, then there's only one thing that I, as Captain, can do." The boy raised his head, wearing a determined expression that, had their faces been free and uncovered, his crew would have recognized well.

"HEY, SANJI!" Luffy sprinted off towards the kitchen. "THERE'S SOMEONE ON THE BABY DENDEN FOR YOU AND IT'S A **GIRL** AND OOOH, IS THAT TODAY'S SNACK? DOES IT HAVE MEAT? I WANT SOME! OH, IT'S GOO-" The rest was lost in sounds of chomping and indistinct yelling from the ship's cook .

"I thought..." Usopp started, clearly trying to hang onto some shred of normalcy. "I thought Luffy wanted to _stop_ the Baby DenDen from getting to Sanji...?"

Nami shrugged. "Does Luffy ever want the same thing from one minute to the next? Anyway, who cares. Let's go." She motioned for the others to follow.

"Go where, stupid?" Zoro folded his arms over his chest, and was annoyed when he realized he had already taken an automatic step after Nami. The ginger-haired girl turned around briefly to give him a withering look before continuing towards the kitchen porthole.

"I'm not sure I understand," Chopper said nervously as he tiptoed after Nami. "It's rude to answer someone else's Baby DenDen but it's okay to eavesdrop on his conversation?"

"We would have heard it _anyway_," Nami said in a soothing, reasonable whisper. "That is, if the door wasn't closed. So we're just making sure we can hear a little _better_."

Comprehension, and awe at Nami's superior grasp on ethical nuances, blossomed over Chopper's face. He inched towards the cabin with renewed, stealthy vigor. Operation: Hear a Little Better proved an initial sucess as the Straw Hats heard Sanji's familiar DenDen greeting float out from the cabin: "Hello, this is the shit restaurant. Would you like to make a reservation?"

What stopped them cold was the reply.

"Hello, sweetheart," said the smooth, self-assured, and now thoroughly amused voice on the other end of the line.

Luffy stopped chewing briefly before deciding that no, the words he'd heard were just a product of his imagination. He went back to demolishing the tea. Sanji absently dug out a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, dipped his shaking hand back in his vest pocket, produced a tinderbox, and struck a light. Just as absently, he opened the hatch in the floor and climbed down to the storage room. He shoved his way past chests and supplies and found a comfortable place to sit between some boxes. He sat down and pulled yet another crate in front of him. Above him in the kitchen, no longer stopped cold, Nami vented her annoyance on the kitchen table.

Sanji took a reassuring drag on the cigarette before speaking into the Baby DenDen. "Hello, Hina," he said. "To what do I owe this lovely surprise?"

----to be continued  
Note: Yes, Sanji is OOC! But I strove mightily to keep everyone else in character, so...might the answer lie in the next chapter? This is my way of begging you to read it.


	2. a drink, a fight, and a talk with nami

"Nothing in particular." Her voice was just as Sanji remembered it, refined and brisk, luxurious and cool. "It's just occurred to me that it's been a while since we last spoke. I wondered how you were getting on."

"I'm the cook on Monkey D. Luffy's ship. You coming to arrest us?" Had it really only been a few weeks ago, that he'd seen her off the coast of Alabasta? The sight of the Marine ship, her name emblazoned on the sail, had made him feel proud, even as his stomach had sank at the prospect of being captured. It was what she'd wanted; it was why - at least, what she said was why - she'd left him. Amid all the gawking and general confusion over Bon Clay, Sanji had slipped away up to the aft with the ship's binoculars. Hina had been standing at the prow of her ship, looking more or less the same. She was a little thinner, and her hair was longer, but that was all. There was the just-so stance, the cigarette dangling from perfectly rogued lips, the jacket slung artfully across her shoulders, the general air that the whole world was one big bore. Sanji's stomach had dropped further again, and he'd gone back down to join Luffy, almost sick with the old familiar longing.

"Oh, no," Hina was saying carelessly. "I can't be bothered with you today, sweetheart. I'm busy with something else."

"Big day at the hairdresser's?" Sanji managed sarcastically. He took another drag on the cigarette to congratulate himself.

"The little puppy's grown fangs, I see," Hina said without rancor. "But no, just another pirate. I've finally got a moment to myself, so we can chat now."

How very like Hina, Sanji thought. To assume that they would do things together when, and only when, it was convenient for her. That ploy might have worked when Sanji was sixteen and a boy and helplessly in love, but he was nineteen now, and a man, and - anway, it wasn't going to work. "Actually, Hina," he said, managing a decent drawl, "I'm rather busy myself at the moment."

"Oh?" her voice turned frosty for exactly a second. "Whatever with?"

"We're having, ah -" Sanji forced himself to say it, told himself there was nothing _wrong_ with it, "We're having our tea."

Hina laughed. "All right sweetheart," she said, as an indulgent mother to a child, "go back to your tea party. You don't want to keep your friends waiting." Without waiting for a reply, she hung up. The Baby DenDen closed its mouth and drooped its eyes a little, waiting for permission to rest. Sanji obligingly put it down on a box. He stood up and made his way back to the ladder. There were three things he needed immediately: a drink, a fight, and a talk with Nami.

He knew how to take care of at least one of them. Adjusting his tie and clearing his throat, Sanji pushed open the hatch door. "Nami-saaaaaan!" he cried. It came out as a soulfull croon.

Nami, Usopp, and Chopper scrambled up off the floor guiltily. At least, Usopp and Chopper looked guilty. Nami was all wide-eyed innocence, as if she could not believe people who eavesdropped on private conversations with their ears pressed against the floor actually existed in this world.

"I am beyond mortified that your afternoon tea was interrupted!" Sanji wailed in apparent anguish. Well, it wasn't that far a stretch. He'd worked damn hard on that snack. He pulled himself up through the hatch and kicked the door shut. "How can I make it up to you and Robin-chan? A late-afternoon parfait? With fresh mint and a kiss?" He looked at them hopefully.

"Some coffee would be lovely, Mr. Cook," Robin said from her seat at the table. "Don't worry about the tea. Mr. Captain was able to enjoy it."

Sanji threw a filthy look at a crumb-speckled Luffy, who burped. "I'm sure he was." Turning his attention back to Nami, Sanji was all hearts and smiles once again. "Nami-san?" he sang. "What is your wish? Parfait? Mint? Kiss?"

"Same as Robin - just coffee would be fine, Sanji-kun," Nami said hastily. "By the way-" it was a little too casual, but not at all sly; so she hadn't heard after all. "Who called just now?"

"My grandmother," Sanji said without missing a beat as he made his way to the kettle and stove. "It worries _Grandmere_, you know, knowing her _petit chouchou_ is somewhere on the Grand Line, facing unspeakable horrors and catching his death of cold. She likes to check up on me."

Usopp, having sufficiently recovered from his initial scare, guffawed incredulously from his seat on the floor. "Grandmother?" he scoffed. "Sanji, even I know that was no old lady on the Baby DenDen. Your grandmother would have to sound at least fifty years older -"

Sanji fixed the sharpshooter with one of his more daggerish stares. "You insulting my _Grandmere_, Long-Nose?" he asked. Without taking his eyes off Usopp, he put a pan of milk on the stove next to the kettle to warm.

Usopp held up his hands hastily, whether to placate or defend, it was hard to tell. "No, no!" he protested. "I merely meant that your grandmother's...ah...aged well."

"Like cheese!" Having nothing better to do now that all the food was gone, Luffy decided to join the conversation. His worthy contribution was, however, sadly ignored by his crew.

"Huh." Zoro sat across from Luffy, a half-full tankard of rum in front of him. He had his arms crossed in a way that plainly stated he did not believe a single word of Sanji's story. "Hey, Cook, your granny-"

"_Grandmere_."

"Yeah, whatever, your Grand Mare's in North Blue, right?"

"Yeah, so what?"

"So how come she got through on the Baby DenDen?" Zoro smirked. "I thought those things didn't get overseas connections."

Really. It was like filleting fish in a bucket. "Guess you don't know too much about Baby DenDens, Marimo." Sanji smirked back. He set out two cups on two saucers and poured the warmed milk into them with precise, practiced ease. "Baby DenDens can't _make_ overseas calls, but that doesn't mean they can't receive them."

"Yeah, Zoro," Luffy said, watching Sanji pour freshly brewed coffee in the cups, "didn't you even know that?" Chopper and Usopp nodded their heads sagely. They clearly had no more trouble believing that Sanji's grandmother, who sounded remarkeably like a sensual young woman in her early thirties, was showing touching concern for her wayward grandson in the only way she knew how. Even if, in Usopp's case, it was a belief born out of terror.

"You didn't know it either, moron!" Zoro snapped back. His brows, which had unfurrowed only slightly since the Baby DenDen first rang that afternoon, plunged downwards once again, towards peevish irritation.

"Yes, I did," Luffy said smugly. "Sanji just told me."

A vein began to throb in the swordsman's forehead. Luckily, Chopper chose that moment to sigh enviously, inadvertantly preventing Luffy's murder at the hands of his own first mate. "Your _Grandmere_ must be a really cool person," the reindeer doctor said wistfully.

Sanji sprinkled cinnamon over the foamy caps of the coffee, placed sugar cubes and stirring spoons on the saucers, and waltzed over to Robin and Nami, presenting the treat with a flourish. "Oh, yes," he agreed gravely as he rose from his bow. "In many ways, _Grandmere_ made me the man I am today."

"Stupid?" Zoro grunted. He reached for his tankard. Sanji was quicker. He snatched the tankard away from Zoro's fingertips and downed it, though not without making a face. Where did the plebian get this rot? And why always rum? If it had to be liquor, Sanji was more of a vodka man himself, but ah well, a drink was a drink.

And a fight was a fight. Sanji brought up a leg an instant before Zoro's fist would have connected with his nose. He threw the empty tankard at the swordsman, who batted it aside and promptly launched himself bodily at Sanji.

"Oh, take it outside," Nami said disgustedly.

"Anything you wish, Nami my sweet!" Sanji managed to say, just as Zoro sank his teeth into his upper arm. Sanji howled and kicked Zoro out the door towards the deck. "Bastard!"

Talk With Nami: check.  
Drink: check.  
Fight: check and double check.

And if Sanji kept his focus on the furiously bickering Zoro and didn't turn around, he could choose not to see Nami's thoughtful gaze or Robin's slight, knowing smile. Yeah. He just wouldn't turn around.

The day was looking better already.

---to be continued


	3. wish for something else

**notes:** According to a casual survey of A Small Town In Japan (conducted less than scientifically by me), most people between the ages of 6 and 43 like Zoro best. Chopper is popular among junior high and high school girls. Usopp has two fans, both female. Luffy has two fans, both male. Sanji, Nami, and Robin were not mentioned.

Zoro: All _right_. (high-fives Chopper) Take that, shit cook!  
Sanji: (wobbly eyes) I...I love Nami even when she's a pariah of society!  
Nami: WHAT.  
(chaos ensues)

Chapter 3: "Wish for Something Else"

It was one of those days. One of those boring days. One of those days when Luffy was bored. Bored, bored, bored. On these kinds of days, when Luffy was bored beyond human endurance, there was only one thing to do: Make everyone play with him.

And the fastest way to get a game going, Luffy knew, was to bug the hell out of Sanji. For this, he would need accomplices. Luckily, there were two willing and ready, both within easy reach. Easy, that was, for a boy with superstretchy rubber arms. After he snatched Chopper from the Crow's Nest and Usopp from his workshop in the storage room - and _after_ they stopped screaming with terror and _after_ they finished hitting him about the head - the captain, the sharpshooter, and the doctor sneaked as one man toward the kitchen door.

Unfortunately, they had underestimated Sanji. Somehow, and Luffy didn't know how, but somehow Sanji had heard the screaming and the hitting and the not-so-whispered plan to liberate all the food from the refridgerator. The blond chef was waiting for them at the door, tossing an extremely sharp knife from hand to hand.

"Please don't make me gut you like a fish," Sanji said.

Usopp and Chopper gulped. Luffy held his ground. "I'm hungry," he stated.

"That's why I'm making dinner."

"But I'm hungry _now_."

"That's _your_ problem," Sanji snapped, who looked like he'd reached the end of his admittedly short rope. "_I_ am trying to practice my art, and I can't do it with you goons hanging around."

"Yeah." The new voice floated up sleepily from the deck. Everyone, even Robin on the upper deck, peered down in surprise as Zoro roused himself from a nap. "The cook's practicing his art," Zoro repeated. Then, as they all gaped, he added, "He wants to be the greatest loser in the world."

In a heartbeat, the knife was flung back into the galley and Sanji was down on the lower deck, doing his best to kick Zoro's face through the other side of his head. Luffy cackled with laughter. This wasn't the entertainment he'd had in mind, but in some ways it was just as fun to see Zoro and Sanji go at each other. Robin returned to her book with a smile as Usopp and Chopper took opposing sides and played cheerleader.

The fight was getting to the really interesting part, the bit where Zoro and Sanji had fended each other off with sword and leg and all they could do was flail angrily, when Nami's voice floated up from her room. "Knock it off!" she called. "I'm trying to work."

"But Nami my dove," Sanji began, dodging Zoro's attempts to gouge out his eyes, "this moldy excuse for a -"

"I mean it." The fact that she stayed in her room and the warning, distracted tone of her voice showed that she did mean it. Whatever she was doing, it was too important to leave and knock heads for. Sanji and Zoro broke apart reluctantly and settled for glaring daggers at each other instead.

Up on the galley deck, Luffy sighed. It was always too bad when Nami broke up their fun. Still, there was always the kitchen...He tapped Usopp and Chopper and they resumed their stealthy journey toward the fridge.

Only to be stopped by Sanji _again_. This time he held the ship's fishing rods, which he shoved at the three of them. "If you're really that bored," the cook said, "go catch something for tomorrow. And while you're at it, do me a favor and get eaten by the biggest Sea King you can find." With that, he went back inside the galley and slammed the door shut.

Luffy led the way down the stairs and to the starboard rail. He, Chopper, and Usopp settled themselves for an afternoon of forced fishing. Luffy and Usopp seemed enough at ease ("Isn't it hilarious when Sanji wishes we would all die gruesome deaths?") but Chopper found himself fishing very _carefully_, just in case Sea Kings liked bits of cork for their bait.

"Aw, man, it's gotten boring again," Luffy was saying. "I wish something would just come along and happen."

Robin chuckled and lowered her book. "Be careful when you wish for bad things, Mr. Captain," she called to them. Playfully, she sprouted an arm from Luffy's shoulder and tipped his straw hat down over his eyes. "They just might come true."

"Good. I _want_ them to come true," Luffy said petulantly, even as he raised his hat again with a smile. Robin smiled in return, then went back to her reading. The miscreants fished in companionable silence for a while.

Chopper broke it by asking, "Luffy, if you could wish for anything right now, what would it be?"

"Ooh..." Luffy furrowed his brow in thought. "I guess...I'd wish that the biggest Hercules Beetle in the world would fly over right now and land on the ship!"

Usopp snorted. "What on earth would you do with the biggest Hercules Beetle in the world?" he said skeptically. "Not like you could ask Sanji to cook it."

Luffy turned wide eyes on Usopp, as if surprised the sharpshooter even had to ask. "Why, I'd make it fight the biggest Atlas Beetle in the world, of course!" he replied, and laughed as Usopp smacked a hand to his forhead.

"What would you ask for, Usopp?" Chopper asked, hoping to avoid an argument. He tugged on his line cautiously, then breathed a sigh of relief when there did not appear to be a Sea King on the other end of it.

Usopp replied wistfully, "I'd wish for the Going Merry to be repaired properly." He patted the side of the ship fondly, as if reassuring her, _One day, one day..._

The others nodded, even Zoro, though that might have simply been his head drooping to his chest in sleep. Repairing Merry was what they all wished for, in the little hidden corners of their hearts. Only Usopp lacked the proper manly fortitude to keep such wishes to himself.

"Anyway," Usopp laughed, shaking himself out of the moment, "how about you, Chopper? What's your wish?"

Chopper did his best to imitate Luffy's pensive expression from before. What did he really want, right at this moment, right now? The little reindeer looked up at the blue sky and fluffy clouds, and wondered what Dr. Kureha was doing, if it was still snowing in Drum. "I'd wish," he said slowly, "I'd wish that someone would come along with news about what's happening in other places." Chopper sat back, satisfied. That was a good wish, even if it seemed unlikely to come true here, on the wide ocean with still a day to go before they reached the next island.

An albatross call made them look up. The newspaper bird was wheeling over them, waiting for the flash of a coin to let it know a newspaper was wanted. Hurriedly, Usopp dug some change out of his pocket. The albatross landed on his shoulder, took the money in its beak in exchange for the paper, and flapped away again.

Usopp and Luffy gawped at Chopper. Usopp's mouth was hanging wide, and Luffy's was wider, thanks to superstretchy rubber jaws. Below them, a Sea King nibbled on the end of Chopper's cork bait, but none of them noticed as the fishing rod flew out of Chopper's slack hands and into the briny depths.

"O-open it," Chopper finally managed to say. His eyes were fixed on the newspaper clenched in Usopp's hands.

Shaking, Usopp obeyed. He cleared his throat. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes. He pulled his goggles back up. "Uh," he croaked. "Ahem. Dal- 'Dalton Proclaimed King of Sakura Kingdom'," he read. "Wait. Dalton? Like Dalton from Drum whom I carried singlehandedly and absolutely without Zoro's help up the mountain on my back Dalton?"

"Sakura Kingdom?" squeaked Chopper. This was news! Something exciting had happened while he was away! And he thought all the exciting things happened outside of Dru-no, the Sakura Kingdom! And he'd never have known if he hadn't wished that something would come along...

"Chopper!" Luffy pounced on the reindeer and cannonballed them both onto the deck. "You make wishes come true!"

"I...I do?" asked Chopper, rather dazed both from being flung around by his excitable captain and by how that same captain had beat him to the same conclusion.

"Yeah!" Luffy threw back his head and laughed. "You're a _magic_ reindeer! Man, I knew we brought you onboard for a reason! Sanji won't ever want to roast you now!"

Chopper's nose turned a significantly lighter shade of blue.

"Wish for something else," Luffy and Usopp both urged before Chopper could ask anxious questions about roasting. Or rather, being roasted.

"Uh, uh." Chopper looked around franctically. Anything to keep his mind from imagining Sanji coming at him with a smile and a spit. "I wish...I wish Robin would close her book!"

SNAP

This time, Usopp's eyes bugged out until they practially left his head, and Luffy's jaw bounced off the deck. Robin looked over at them, the shut book in one hand. "I'm sorry," she said. "Did I disturb you? There was a fly, you see." She opened the book again to show them the black speck crushed onto page 378.

"Wish for something else," Usopp whispered, not taking his eyes off of Robin's book.

Chopper gulped. "I wish the biggest Sea King on the Grand Line would come over and wave hello and and and go away again without eating us!"

The ocean surged. The ship rocked. A huge, wet head emerged from the sea, spraying water over the Going Merry. Usopp and Chopper screamed. Luffy screamed along with them happily, and wondered vaguely why something that looked suspiciously like one of the ship's fishing rods was dangling out of the Sea King's mouth. But that thought was brushed away as an eye the size of the refridgerator closed and opened again once, slowly. A wink.

And then the Sea King was gone. The sea returned to its normal churning. Chopper found himself being stared at by Luffy, Usopp, _and_ Zoro.

"Wish for something else," the three of them breathed in unison.

Chopper was starting to feel scared. It was all right _talking_ about making wishes come true, but actually _having_ the power to call up Sea Kings without getting gulped was something else altogether. He'd really have to watch what he said from now on! And he could never make silly wishes that he didn't mean, ever again! No more 'I wish Zoro was super nice all the time,' or 'I wish I could have all the meat for dinner instead of Luffy,' and _definitely_ no more 'I wish my eyebrows curled up all cool like Sanji's.' He was just going to have to cut out his tongue and be mute for the rest of his life. Chopper's eyes started to wobble.

_Wait, wait_, said the part of Chopper's brain that handled all the common sense. _You know you don't make wishes come true, Chop. Those were just coincidences. The newspaper bird would have come anyways, and Robin showed us the fly, and well, maybe the Sea King just wasn't that hungry. The thing to do,_ the sensible voice went on, _is to wish for something really impossible, something that could never in a million, trillion years happen, not even to Captain Usopp._

That's right. Wish for the impossible. Something that not even Captain Usopp, Chopper's avowed idol, could even dream of happening. Chopper firmed up his eyes and his resolve, and in a loud, clear voice, declared, "I wish all the meat on board would go rancid!"

"Why the _fuck_ has all the meat gone rancid!"

The next few moments were all movement and thudding of shoes and slamming of doors as everyone - Usopp, Chopper, Luffy and Zoro from the lower deck, Nami bursting out from the storage room - followed Sanji's screams. Even Robin rose from her chair to get a better view.

Sanji was slumped on the floor in front of the refridgerator, cigarette dangling, hair in disarray. The fridge door was open, its contents displayed for all to see. There was water everywhere. There was a most horrible stench.

"What's that horrible stench?" Usopp asked. He looked down as a small 'whump' sounded next to him. Chopper had fainted, whether from shock or the smell, Usopp wasn't sure.

Luffy was nearly as bad. He crept to Sanji's side, whimpering. "Meat?" he said.

"It's gone bad," Sanji replied in a daze. "All of it." He blinked and shook himself. "And why the bloody fuck is the refridgerator not plugged in?"

Zoro frowned. "Why the hell didn't you _notice_ it wasn't plugged in?" he asked. "You're the cook, aren't you?"

"Oh, shove off -" Sanji began, then stopped. He scratched his head. "Wait. Why _didn't_ I notice?" He looked around. "When was the last time I took meat out of the fridge?"

"Last night after dinner because I wanted meat for dessert," Luffy replied automatically, then crumpled again. "Meat..."

"Right..." Sanji said slowly. "And why didn't we have a hot breakfast today?"

"Because some pirates attacked us while you were going to the kitchen and Zoro jumped onto their ship and they started sailing away with him," said Nami.

"Ah, Nami my love, what an exquisite memory you possess! And why - no, I'm sorry, pirates sailing off with Zoro doesn't explain why we skipped breakfast."

Zoro growled and kicked him in the head.

"Because we had to get Zoro back on board," Usopp said hastily.

"-Because I'm worth more than your fancy-schmancy girly pancakes, fancy-schmancy girly man-"

"And then the Marines came while we were doing that and opened fire," Nami continued.

"-with your fancy-schmancy girly goddamn eyebrow-"

"So we had to eat boring dried stuff from the storage room while we fought," Luffy said in a dead voice. "I mean, I don't even _remember_ buying crackers."

"That's because you've been banned from buying anything, ever, for the rest of your life," Nami retorted.

"-and your fancy-schmancy-"

"Oh, shut _up_." Nami absently whacked Zoro into unconsciousness.

"And the fridge must have come unplugged from that cannonball impact," Sanji finished. "I _thought_ that one felt a bit strong. Why didn't I notice during lunch?"

"Because we had a cold lunch," Usopp volunteered. "We all had to mend Merry, so you didn't have time to cook, so you said get the dried noodle packets from the store room and you'd just heat up some water. So actually, it was a hot lunch after all. Hahaha." He laughed nervously. Nobody joined him.

"And then," said Luffy, who seemed ready to rejoin life again, "I said 'I'm really bored' and then I got Usopp and Chopper and we came to get some food -" He collapsed in groans again.

"All right, all right," Sanji said hastily. "I remember that part." He inhaled deeply, then gagged as the smell of rotting meat hit his nose anew. "Nami dearest, how far away is the next island?"

Nami frowned as she redid the calculations in her head. "We should arrive by noon tomorrow," she replied. "It's not that bad. We'll just clean out the fridge and have noodle packets again. Cheer up, Sanji," she added. "I'll give you extra money to go shopping tomorrow, at a very low interest rate."

Sanji managed a decent smile. "Ah, does the lovely Nami's generosity know no bounds?" he cooed to the ceiling.

Nami waved him off, then reached over to grab Luffy by the scruff of his shirt. She hauled him out of the galley and booted him back down to the deck. "Get back to fishing," she ordered. "And make sure you catch something this time."

"...Meat..." came the weak reply.

Nami rolled her eyes and headed back to her room.

In the kitchen, Sanji surveyed the damage and then his troops. Zoro: out cold. Chopper: out cold. Usopp: quaking. Sanji got off the floor. He walked to the sink and drew out two rags and a bag. He tossed one of the rags to the sharpshooter. "Start wiping," he said grimly. Usopp gulped, nodded, and rushed to obey.

A few minutes later, Chopper opened his eyes. It had been a dream. It had just been a bad, bad dream. Funny, though. Dr. Kureha always said you couldn't smell things in dreams, but Chopper had definitely smelled something horrible. Something horrible that smelled a lot like whatever horrible thing was stinking up the kitchen right now. He turned his head. Sanji and Usopp were on their knees, wiping water off the galley floor with rags. A bag of rotting meat lay between them.

Chopper groaned. "That's right," he said to himself. "I make wishes come true." What an awful curse to be saddled with. So the little reindeer did what he always did in times of crisis: he crawled over to the inexplicably comatose Zoro and, attaching his furry body to the swordsman's head, went right back to sleep.

-----to be continued  
**notes:** I know meat doesn't rot quite that quickly, but really, refridgerators shouldn't even exist in the OP universe, so I don't feel that bad about taking liberties. I'd really wanted to make the fridge moldy too, but that would take at least a month's worth of neglect on Sanji's part. How do I know? Let's just say...I know.


	4. you don't have to shout, zoro

**notes:** Lots of gratuitous manly swearing in this chapter. Scarlet blushes tinted my virgin cheeks even as I wrote them.

"You Don't Have to Shout, Zoro"

The next afternoon found the Going Merry docked at a large summer island, Luffy in alternate fits of ecstasy and whiny hunger, and Sanji on his hands and knees, scrubbing the hell out of the fridge.

"Sanji?"

He looked up to see Nami standing at the galley door, wearing her nicest skirt and matches-with-anything heels. Clearly, she was going into town with an agenda, one that did not, Sanji suspected, include grocery shopping. Not that he'd expected it of her.

"Beautiful Nami!" he exclaimed, wiping his hands on his trousers. "Before you ask, let me assure you that you are the very vision of loveliness! Did you come to me because you doubted your own beauty? My darling, how could you ever -"

"I didn't," Nami interrupted him. "I wanted to know if you're coming into town? You know, to replace the supplies. Zoro said he'd guard the ship."

"Ah." Sanji looked from her to the sudsy fridge. "Actually, Nami my sugerplum, I already gave Usopp a list of things. I really won't feel right until the refridgerator's clean again."

Nami looked slightly put out. Sanji knew exactly what she was thinking: _How can I lend you money if you won't get off the ship?_ "But Sanji, you've scrubbed the fridge six times already. Don't you think that's clean enough?"

"Ah, sweet Nami, you always show such touching concern!" No way was he going to admit that he'd had nightmares about the fridge, of drowing in rotten meat and an engraged Zeff stumping after him as he ran across a landscape of mold. "I shall miss the pleasure of yours and Robin dearest's company, believe me. But I think I'll stay and scrub the fridge a seventh time, just to be on the safe side."

Nami rolled her eyes and shrugged, giving up. "Suit yourself," she said, turning to go. "See you in a bit, then." And then she was gone.

Sanji wrung out the rag, listening to the sound of his companions bickering their way along the port. Luffy and Usopp arguing, Nami scolding, and very faintly Robin's quiet, amused laugh. Then the stillness. Sanji liked the moment of silence that rushed in in the absence of his crewmates' noise. It was like a door swinging shut on a racous party, sudden but not unwelcome. Sanji knew he was as loud as any of them, but he also liked his privacy and guarded jealously the rare moments alone.

Well. Almost alone.

The familiar thudding of heavy boots on stairs told Sanji that he would not be cleaning the refridgerator in peace. Sure enough, when he turned to look, Zoro was just coming in the galley.

"Hey, soft-ass cook," the swordsman grunted. "Make me some food."

Sanji growled. "Don't give me orders, you overmusculed creep. If you're hungry, why didn't you go to town with the others?"

"I wanted to nap." Zoro sat down at the table and thumped his feet up upon it.

"Then go and get your goddamn beauty sleep. Why are you still here yapping?" Sanji replied through gritted teeth.

Zoro smirked. "Because I'm hungry."

Sanji threw down the rag and rose to his feet. "That is it." He started to advance on the still-grinning Zoro. "Get out of my kitchen or I swear to God I'll beat your ass to next Wednesday and back -"

"Hey."

The way Zoro said it made Sanji pause. Scrabbling for balance - slightly, barely noticeably; no way he was going to give the shithead the satisfaction of seeing him trip - Sanji shot a suspicious glare at the swordsman. He wasn't smiling anymore. His brows were sunk so low to be almost touching, and his eyes had half-shut, hooded look they got whenever he was, hah, 'thinking.'

"What?" Sanji stubbed his cigarette between two fingers and, fishing it out of his pocket, immediately lit another. He inhaled and exhaled smoke with exaggerated slowness, trying to gauge Zoro's shift in mood.

"Why do I get the feeling you're not telling the truth about your grandmother?"

Sanji didn't miss a beat. "Why do _I_ get the feeling you should fall overboard and die?"

"I'm serious, shithead. Who the hell were you talking to on the Baby DenDen?"

"Why do you give a fuck?"

Zoro stared at him. "Call it idle curiousity."

"I'll call you idle, sure." Sanji stared back.

"Just answer the fucking question."

"Hey. Asshole." Sanji raised a leg and brought it slamming down on the table, a mere inch from Zoro's own feet. A not-so-friendly warning. "You're not my fucking father. I don't have to ask your permission to talk to people, and I don't have to account for myself either, not to you. Got it? Or is it," he couldn't help but add, "that you're jealous?"

"You're full of shit."

Removing the cigarette from his lips, Sanji flicked ash expertly at Zoro's face. "'Cause I can't think of any other reason why you're suddenly so interested in my social life. Can't get a grandmother of your own, so you leech off other people's, yeah?"

Zoro got to his feet with a snarl. Sanji was ready for it and slid into a crouch at the same time. "Yeah?" The swordsman spat at him. "That's the way you want to play it, you curly-browed freak? What kind of woman would let _you_ call her grandmother? You'd have to pay one to even look at you!"

"What do you know about grandmothers, Marimo!"

"I know that you ain't got one!'

"I had a grandmother! And I loved her, all right?" Sanji threw down his cigarette and ground it under his shoe. What the hell. The conversation had gotten ridiculous a million years ago; what did he care what he said anymore? "That what you want to hear? I fucking loved my grandmother, you green-haired piece of pondscum."

They stood like that across the table, Zoro looking hard at him while Sanji stared at a spot on the wall. Finally, Zoro blew out a breath, almost angrily. "What's a lady like her doing with a punk-ass grandson like you?" he asked grudgingly.

"Nothing," Sanji replied dully. "She's doing nothing with me. I haven't talked to her in three years."

Another silence. Then: "Grandmothers...who needs 'em? You're better off without one."

Sanji relaxed. Zoro was no counselor, that was for damn sure, but they had entered back into the realm of bravado, and Sanji could handle that on autopilot. "Damn straight. Why do you think I _haven't_ spoken to her in three years?"

God, he needed a drink. He crossed the galley and kicked the fridge door shut. Scrubbed six and a half times. As Nami said, clean enough. Then he got down on his knees and, rummaging through the cupboard in the space behind all the pans, he produced a hidden bottle of scotch. Without being asked, Zoro moved around the table and to the sink to get glasses.

They drank in awkward slience for a while. Voluntary comraderie was not a state in which they normally found themselves. Sanji wracked his brains. What did two guys talking about being dumped by a woman usually say?

"You ever had a grandmother, Marimo?"

Zoro grunted. "Temporary ones. None worth remembering. Not like yours on the Baby DenDen."

"Once you've had a grandmother like her, you never want another real one."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

They drank some more, less awkwardly.

"Your Grand Mare planning to do this often? Check up on you?"

"Nah." Sanji pulled a cigarette out of the box. "To her, I'm _barely_ worth remembering. She called because she had nothing better to do."

"Bitch."

"A royal bitch," Sanji agreed, striking a light. He looked in the cigarette box. One left. He held the pack out to Zoro.

"I don't smoke."

"You _don't_ smoke, or you've never smoked _before_?"

The swordsman glared at him. "That a challenge?"

Sanji shrugged. "Hey, what a man does to his lungs is entirely up to himself. I'm just putting the option out there."

Zoro hesitated, then pulled a cigarette out. He rolled it between his fingers for a minute before tucking it in a pocket of his pants. Sanji chuckled and poured him another glass of scotch. They finished the bottle without saying anything more.

xXxXxXx

The others arrived back at the ship in late afternoon. They either didn't notice or didn't care that things on board seemed a bit quieter than when Sanji and Zoro were usually left alone together.

"Honestly, Usopp," Nami was saying. "If I can carry huge bags of gold around by myself, then you should be able to handle the _groceries_."

"Oh yeah?" Usopp winced and shifted the bulging bag on his back. Bent nearly double, he looked ready to buckle under the weight of meat and vegetables. "If you're so strong, why don't you carry this thing?"

"Because," replied Nami smugly, "I wasn't asked to do the food shopping. Besides," she added, "I've already got my hands full." She held up her arms, from which dangled at least ten paper bags all filled with clothes. "See you." Blowing Usopp a kiss, Nami disappeared up the rope ladder.

"C'mon, Usopp!" Luffy prodded Usopp's shoulder. "Hurry up and get on board! I want to eat soon!"

Usopp groaned. "Didn't you already eat that restaurant out of every scrap of food it had?"

"Yeah, I guess. But that was like, two hours ago! I'm hungry again."

"Me too!" As Usopp glared at him, Chopper added hastily, "But that's because I didn't eat _anything_ 'cause I was in the bookstore honest don't be mad at me!" He scampered up the ladder before the Dread Captain Usopp could visit his admittedly hampered wrath upon him.

"You know, Luffy, if you really want to eat, you could help me with this bag." Usopp looked balefully at Luffy's strong and more importantly, empty hands.

"Oh." Luffy went round-eyed with surprise. "Why didn't you say so earlier?" Before Usopp could even open his mouth to scream, Luffy had grabbed the sack off of him and Gomu-Gomu Rocketed onto the ship.

_One day_, Usopp thought as he climbed shakily up the ladder. _One day I'll snap and no one will be able to blame me._ He hauled himself over the side of the ship to see Sanji on the deck, checking the contents of the bag while fending Luffy off with one leg. Usopp staggered over and thrust the shopping list at the cook. "I think I got everything. I didn't really know what 'lean cut' meant, though, so I guessed."

"No, this is fine." Sanji nodded his thanks. "Luffy, there's a snack in the kitchen. Leave this stuff alone."

"Wahoo!" Sandaled feet shot up the stairs.

Sanji looked around. Chopper was sitting down, leafing through a book. Usopp had collapsed down next to the reindeer. Zoro was finally taking his nap. But...

"Where's Robin dearest?"

Nami paused in the act of lugging her shopping to her room. "Oh, Robin found some carvings that she said were interesting. She wanted to talk to the villagers about them, see what kind of history this place has. She says she'll be back after supper."

"_After_ supper?" Sanji couldn't keep the disappointment from his voice. Cooking for so few, he did make meals _just_ for the crew's tastes, but that was no good if they weren't around to do the tasting. Not that he begrudged his companions meals where ever they wanted to have them, Sanji told himself. No doubt small-town grub had its own rustic charms. But still...

"Yes, that's right...ah, Sanji, I almost forgot. Robin asked that you keep some food warm for her, so she can have some when she gets back." With that, Nami was gone to admire her purchases.

Sanji knew Robin had done no such thing. It would not occur to her to make a request without invitation. This was, Sanji knew, Nami giving him one of her rare, sudden kindnesses. Somewhat mollified, he hefted the grocery sack over his shoulder and started towards the kitchen to fix supper.

xXxXxXx

After supper, everyone went their own ways. Zoro decided it was the perfect time to act on an idea that had been bothering him for the last three days. He walked into the hold, this evening luckily empty of Usopp's workshop or Chopper's doctoring station. If Zoro remembered correctly, it should have been here...in this corner...on this box...yes. The shit cook had left it here after all.

Zoro sat down in the corner that Sanji had occupied three days earlier, and picked up the Baby DenDen. His last, and first, conversation on it had gone less than spectacularly, he knew. And Roronoa Zoro simply did not _do_ things less than spectacularly. All right, maybe this wasn't on par with duels to the death, but Zoro could not rest until he'd won the Battle of the DenDen.

One problem remained, however. Who was he going to call?

No overseas connections on the Baby DenDen, Zoro reminded himself. And no one was going to call _him_. Unless... Zoro raised the Baby DenDen up to mouth level. It was a gamble, but then, what wasn't in his life?

"Hello?"

Zoro clamped down hard on the feeling of elation that started up in him, and beat it back to smug triumph instead. It'd worked. He knew she wouldn't have thrown hers away. "HELLO, ROBIN?" he said loudly into his end.

Somewhere on the other side of the island, Robin winced. While she welcomed the unexpected call - and from Zoro, of all people - it was a little disconcerting to be shouted at just when she needed some quiet. "Mr. Swordsman, you really don't have to shout," she said gently. "The Baby DenDen will pick up your voice just fine if you speak normally."

"I AM NOT SHOUTING," Zoro stated, although he privately got the uncomfortable feeling that his voice sounded louder than usual. It was the damn echo, he decided. The hold. Cave-like. Made everything louder.

He started as something thumped against the underside of the floor.

"Zoro!" Nami's voice, sounding seriously annoyed, pierced through the floorboards. "Will you please keep it down?" Another whump. Was she throwing _shoes_ at him?

"Keep it down yourself!" he yelled downwards. "HELLO, ROBIN." He directed the rest of the yell into the Baby DenDen. Dammit. What did people talk about on DenDen Mushis, anyway? "HOW - HOW ARE YOU?"

"I'm well, thank you. I'm a little hungry, though. How are you?"

"I'M SITTING IN THE STORAGE ROOM. WE'VE JUST HAD SUPPER."

"Hey, shitface!" The sound of a boot thudding on wood sounded again, directly above his head this time. "Can I at least wash the dishes without hearing your goddamn voice? And stop yelling like that at my darling Robin!"

Fists hammered against the wall beside him before Zoro could retort. "Zoro! Hey, Zoro!" Luffy, Usopp, _and_ Chopper were on the other side. "Are you talking to Robin?" Chopper called excitedly. "Can you ask her to pick up a book for me on her way back? There's one I forgot to buy and -"

"Hiiii, Robin!" Luffy. "We're not eavesdropping, okay? Zoro's just talking really, really loud!"

Robin was saying something. Zoro decided to ignore the noise around him. "...And how was supper, Mr. Swordsman?"

"SUPPER WAS -" Zoro stopped cold. He was not going to say it. Not when he was surrounded. He decided to change the subject. "I FORGOT TO TURN ON THE LIGHT," he blared, then smacked himself on the forehead. Why the hell had he just said that?

"Oh. That's...a shame."

Three pairs of fists, one heeled leather shoe (attached to leg), and several pairs of ladies' sandals (free-flying) shook the walls of the room around him.

"Talk quieter!"

"Sandbag, that is not how you talk to a lady on the Baby DenDen!"

"I wanna talk to Robin!"

"Will you all just shut up!"

"We will when you do," Nami called up pointedly. "If you _are_ going to scream an entire DenDen conversation, you could at least make it interesting."

"Shove off, Nami!" Zoro glared at the floor furiously. "Don't you know that listening to other people's conversations earns you fifty years in hell?"

"_What!_" Another barrage of expensive footwear exploded underneath him. "How can I _help_ hearing you? The people in Alubarna can probably hear you!"

On the other end of the line, Robin sprouted an arm at eye-level from the carved wall in front of her and rubbed the hand over her temples. There was not a day when she regretted joining this crew, but goodness, they were young. At least she never forgot her age around them, Robin thought ruefully.

Still, she liked to have her jokes too, and this was really too good an opportunity to pass up. "Mr. Swordsman," she said into the Baby DenDen. "Please don't stress over this. Perhaps an exercise will help. Pretend that you are telling me a secret, one that you don't want anyone else to know. Say it into the DenDen as quietly as you can. Remember, the walls are listening." _Literally_, she thought with a smile.

"WHAT?" This time Zoro meant to yell. "LISTEN, WOMAN, I WILL BE DAMNED IF I'M TELLING YOU SOME FUCKING SHIT SECRET -"

"Ooooh!"

Damn.

"Zoro, tell us, I mean Robin, your secret!"

"Yeah, we don't mind if you shout now!"

"Talk as loud as you want, Marimo. Just don't tell Robin any _dirty_ secrets to offend her delicate ears."

Zoro sat frozen. There were two ways out of this situation. One of them involved killing everyone on board. He passed that option up, though not without great inward struggle.

Three minutes later, Zoro opened the door to the hold and walked out onto the deck, looking satisfied. He headed towards his favorite napping spot. Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp followed after him, while Nami and Sanji emerged from below and above deck, respectively.

"Where's the Baby DenDen?" Sanji demanded.

Zoro jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "In there."

"You didn't _break_ it, did you?"

"Nope."

"What about your secret?" Nami asked.

Zoro smirked. "Told it."

"You did not!" Nami jammed her hands on her hips. "You couldn't talk quietly on that thing if your life depended on it!"

'Well, I told it. Not my problem if your ears are failing."

"Humph!" Nami made a face at him. "I don't believe you. Liar!"

"Pinnochio!" Chopper added.

"Marimo."

"First Mate!"

"Luffy, that's not an insult. That's just an affirmation of his position on the ship."

"_Really tall_ First Mate!"

"Luffy...oh, never mind." Usopp threw up his hands. "Dread Captain Usopp Impersonator!"

Just then, a dark head poked above the port side, and Robin climbed aboard. Everyone made a rush for her. Sanji got there first.

"Robin my dearest, I kept supper warm for you!"

She looked at him in surprised pleasure. "Did you? That was kind." She politely sidestepped his attempts to take her hand and escort her to the galley. As she passed Zoro, Robin winked and said, "Your secret's safe with me, Mr. Swordsman."

For a moment, they simply stared with slack jaws. Then as one person, they rushed Zoro and harangued him until Luffy declared a party and had Sanji get out the beer. Robin ate her supper on the galley steps, following the volleys of laughter and argument.

The rest of the night passed noisily. Sanji liked that too, the door suddenly opening on the noise of the party again. He joined in with a will, tossing empty peanut shells down Zoro's shirt and tossing back mug after mug of cheap beer. Then he caught sight of Nami's profile, half-lit by the moon. Her face was open and relaxed in enjoyment, which sent a surge of knots through Sanji's stomach, which made him remember a time when he'd had similar knots on a daily basis, which reminded him that things were not yet close to okay.

------  
**notes:** Oof, long chapter. If you managed to stay to the end, congratulations! I commend you. Next chapter: flashback! All right!


	5. coffee and cigarettes

**notes:** Since Hina is 32 in the present series, and the flashbacks are set three years prior, she is 29 in them and Sanji is a sweet 16. Oh, the scandal. Italics denote flashback.

**"Coffee and Cigarettes"**

Sanji slipped into the galley, letting the door swing shut on the sounds of the party out on the deck. Nami had third watch tonight, and Sanji wanted to finish brewing her coffee before he turned in. He smiled wryly as he got the coffee tin down from a shelf. Sanji knew what Zoro would - and probably did - say about this little routine. "Soft-ass womanizer." "Whipped." Whatever. Let the asshole say what he wanted.

The truth was, Sanji liked doing things for Nami. Though she made a show of playing it cool - just a worldly vixen getting the adoration due to her - Sanji liked the way her face brightened when he approached with a snack, and the childish delight she took in having her commands enthusiastically obeyed. Knowing what he did about her (and Sanji would never let on that he knew much more about her than she about him), he used every act of seeming servitude, every thoughtless order as a reminder that Nami, contrary to appearances, was not used to being indulged.

This, to him, set her apart from all the other girls and women who'd stepped foot on the Baratie, all the coddled daddy's girls and petulant debutantes and officers' wives bored out of their privileged minds. He'd fawned and waxed romantic for them too, but it had been easier to do it as pure performance, back then. Anything to get the spoiled rich girls smiling and maybe order an extra dessert. Sanji kept it up with Nami because, well, that kind of behavior was as habit-forming as smoking. And anyway, he'd rather have died than admit he'd underestimated her that first day, had taken her for just another spoiled brat along for the ride, and then had kept on underestimating her until they were practically on top of the Grand Line.

Funny, though, Sanji thought as he set a pan of milk on the stove to warm. Hadn't he been in love with one of those brats, not so long ago? And wasn't he really doing this bit of song and dance with Nami, different as she was, so that he wouldn't...well, never mind. Sanji finally had a moment to himself. No harm in remembering the past while he waiting for the coffee to brew.

_She came in with some officer. They were seated in the middle of the floor, a couple to be seen and admired. Sanji caught sight of her when the kitchen door swung open to let in an order. He stared as she lit a cigarette with a careless, practiced hand. She inhaled and blew out smoke in a smooth breath before taking the cigarette from her mouth to laugh at something the officer said. Sanji put down his knife and followed an order of orange duck out the kitchen and onto the restaurant floor. He snagged the sleeve of Jameson as the Maitre d' bustled by the rear of the restaurant. _

_"Who's that?" Sanji kept his voice low and nodded towards the woman. _

_Jameson smirked, following his gaze. "Captain Hina, you mean? Her father's some bigshot over at Marine Headquarters, so she plays at being officer. Not a bad-looking face though, eh? Not to mention that body. Almost makes you with more girls would get up in uniform." _

_The same thoughts had been running vaguely through Sanji's mind, but he flushed to hear them spoken out loud. In Jameson's mouth, they sounded vulgar and low, especially as the Captain Hina, with her cool posture and brisk, keen face, did not look like she was 'playing' at anything. _

_"Let me wait her table," Sanji said, not taking his eyes off her. _

_"No way." Jameson snorted and turned to go. _

_Sanji tightened his grip on Jameson's sleeve. "Come on. You're understaffed anyway." _

_The Maitre d' twitched his arm away from Sanji irritatedly. "Forget it, Sanji. Hate to break it to you, kid, but you're not the only one in this joint who likes waiting on a pretty lady. 'Sides," he added, not unkindly, "she's out of your league. Hina's high-class, old money stuff. Not the nouveau riche type we usually get. She's not gonna be interested in some wet-behind-the-ears punk like you, for all you're Assistant Chef." He patted Sanji's shoulder in a fatherly, just-looking-out-for-_you _sort of way. Sanji resisted the urge to bash him into the wall. _

_"The soup, then," he said instead through gritted teeth. "I'm doing soups today. Let me bring it to her. Compliments of the Assistant Chef." _

_Jameson waved him off. "All right, all right. The soup course's yours. If you can win her over with soup, you'll have my undying respect as a man." _

_Sanji didn't tell him what he could do with his undying respect. "Thanks," he said. He ambled back into the kitchen to make the soup. _

_She was tapping her cigarette against an ashtray with one hand when he brought the soup to her, and tucking a strand of golden hair behind her ear with the other. She didn't bother to look up from her conversation when he set the bowl in front of her, and waved him away with a dismissive white hand. _

_"Is there anything else I can bring for you, Madam?" Sanji asked in his most sophisticated voice. He, in turn, did not bother to look at the officer as he set the bowl of soup in front of him. "Another glass of wine? A sampler? The cherries for today's tarts have just come in; would Madam care to taste one?" _

_"We'd _like _some peace and quiet," the officer snapped, and Sanji did not have to look to know that he was red with indignation. _

_"Nothing, thank you," Captain Hina raised an eyebrow at her companion, not Sanji. _

_Sanji pressed on smoothly, "Is Madam sure she does not require some trifle not currently at her disposal? I assure Madam that what I have is much bigger than what Sir can offer." _

_Hina's eyes lifted to him at last, a smile twitching at her lips. At Sanji's elbow, the officer was sputtering with rage. "Listen, you little upstart," he snarled. "I don't know what you're playing at -" _

_Sanji's eyes widened in mock surprise. "Why, Sir, I intend no offense. I refer, of course, to a flower bouquet. No lady's table should go unadorned." He finally risked a glance at Hina. Her face was openly amused now, her eyes traveling back and forth from the fuming officer to him. When she caught his eyes, her gaze was appraising and deliberately slow, and Sanji knew he'd won. He bowed and turned smartly on his heel to head back to the kitchen. _

_She stole up beside him as he was standing at the rail for a cigarette break. Without saying a word, she cupped his chin in her slim fingers and kissed him. Sanji kissed her back, earnestly and carefully, knowing he was being tested. When they broke apart, she said, "You're still a little boy, after all." Her voice was mocking, but the way she pressed her body against his was soft and coaxing. Sanji, intoxicated by her nearness and the way she invited him to want her without seeming to want him, could only nod dumbly. _

_She went on, "Inform the Maitre d' that I will come to the Baratie on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, precisely at noon, and that I expect a table ready and laid, with or without flowers. Furthermore, I expect you to be finished with your duties, whatever they may be, by no later than 2 o'clock. Is this understood?" _

_He nodded again. Hina ran the pad of her thumb over his lips. "If nothing else," she remarked, "I shall teach you how to smoke." Then she was gone, not to return again until Saturday. _

_That was how Sanji's affair with Black Cage Hina began._

Sanji could hear the party outside winding down as Usopp climbed up the rigging to take first watch. His crewmates, sleepily happy with drink, began coming into the galley to dump empty mugs on the table.

"Watch it," Sanji snapped as Zoro came to the sink and sloshed a half-full tankard precariously close to the coffee pot. "This coffee's for Nami and Robin."

Zoro snorted. "You're a real whipped dog, you know that?" Not waiting for a reply, the green-haired swordsman wandered out the door and down the stairs to the men's quarters. Nami followed him, talking sleepily with Robin, not seeming to notice the effort Sanji was putting in for her.

Sanji didn't particularly mind. Nami never did thank him for the coffee, either before or after she drank it. But in the mornings he always found her mug, stirring spoon, and coffee pot meticulously washed and set out to dry. Nami was, Sanji knew, basically selfish, just like Hina, but here was the thing. She was also basically kind.

He looked up to see Luffy and Chopper hovering somewhat unsteadily by the door. Neither of them, nor Usopp for that matter, could really hold their liquor. Sanji wondered briefly if it was strictly responsible to allow them unrestricted amounts of alcohol during these parties, then dismissed the thought. Who was he to go around regulating his captain's drink?

"You coming to bed, Sanji?" Luffy asked, smiling lopsidedly.

"Yup." He checked to make sure the coffee and milk were warming safely, then crossed the galley to the door in a few easy, long strides. Hoisting Chopper up in one arm - the reindeer protested half-heartedly before falling dead asleep - he slung the other around Luffy's shoulders. Sanji could count on the refridgerator not getting raided tonight, at least.

Together, the captain humming a silly little song to himself and the cook loping along in companionable silence, they headed down below deck to get a few hours' sleep.

-----  
**notes:** Well, the story's finally starting to go somewhere. Obviously I invented a lot of stuff about the Baratie's clientele and about half of Hina's character. While I get the impression that the Baratie must serve/fight pirate crews pretty regularly, it also seems like the type of place that's really chic for rich people to dine at. Next chapter: more flashbacks (maybe?) The difference between Nami and Robin, and I'm not talking bust sizes.


	6. damp weather, low moods

**notes:** I should be writing "Snow Queen," but Sanji kept jumping up and down, waving his arms and saying, "Me! Me! Pick me! You like me way better than Vivi-chan anyway!" ...It's true D: Concerns over Sanji's age were raised. I did make this pairing on purpose, with the age gap in mind. I think Sanji's age and perception of maturity are important themes for his in-manga character, so I'm trying to explore that using this affair. Whether it works or not remains to be seen?

Thank you for all the reviews; they have helped a lot. And Erithil, you're right - flashbacks are extremely hard to pull off...which is why mine are kind of half-assed and just regular narrative but in italics ;

**"Damp Weather, Low Moods" part 1**

_Hina taught Sanji to smoke, and to kiss, and to make love, and to dress well. Sanji thought he'd known how to do these things before, but every time Hina came to his little room in the dormitories, she said the same thing. _

_"You're just a child." _

_One part of Sanji wanted to shout, "Then why are you wasting your time with me!" But he never did. He just said humbly, "I'll do better," and kissed her out the door. Because when he came right down to it, Hina was _very _good at kissing and making love, and she practically turned smoking into an art form. So Sanji found himself spending whole hours studying the way his mouth moved around a cigarette, or turning out his drawers and _really examining _his tie collection. He would have been alarmed, but Hina's mocking words stung just a tad too deeply. A child was the one thing Sanji had spent his whole life trying not to be. _

_Zeff did not approve, and he minced no words expressing his displeasure at Sanji's latest affair. _

_"It'll end badly," Zeff said bluntly to him one day over the dishes. "You're wasting your time." _

_"Shut your trap, old man," Sanji grunted as he handed Zeff a tureen to dry. "You're here to supervise my cooking, not be the Dating Police." _

_"Cooking? Supervise?" Zeff swiped at the tureen savagely. "What's there to supervise? You're holed up with the Captain so that I barely see your rotten hide in this kitchen. And when you _are _here, you do a shit job. Give me a reason why I shouldn't toss you overboard, eggplant." _

_"Don't call me that," Sanji said automatically. He glared at Zeff across the sink. "Give me one reason why I should stop seeing her," he countered. "Most people would consider a Marine officer a pretty good catch." _

_Zeff dumped the tureen on the dry dish cart and held out his hand for the next plate. "A reason _besides _the utter ridiculousness of your age difference, you mean?" he asked dryly. _

_"Twenty-nine isn't that old," Sanji said defensively. _

_"I'm not talking about her, you nitwit!" Zeff threw down the cloth and thrust a finger at Sanji's face. "You are sixteen, Sanji. Sixteen. And you've had things far too easy. You're soft as a baby. When I was your age, I'd plundered most of the Four Blues and was making a second round -" _

_Sanji all but chucked a pair of meat tongs at Zeff. "Spare me the reminisces, crap geezer," he snapped. "And in case you've forgotten, the 'baby' took care of those pirates last week, _and _the week before that, and the month before _that_. I'm not exactly sitting pretty in the kitchen, sucking my thumb, you know." _

_"Oh yes?" Zeff countered, catching the tongs neatly with one large, hairy hand. "You think you're so grown-up, is that it? You think smoking cigarettes around raw food makes you so adult? Giving free wine to pretty girls makes you a man? Beating up customers makes you tough? Scaring off some no-name pirates in a backwater Blue gives you the right to talk big? Listen, my boy, you haven't even cut your eyeteeth yet. Of all the overgrown louts on this ship, the Captain has to pick the one who's still a baby." He shook his head. "What she thinks she's doing with an unripe eggplant, I don't even know." _

_That was the only piece of criticism Sanji heard Zeff utter against Hina. Zeff never bothered much with the customers - his interest was in the Baratie itself and the food; he never actually cared who ate there - but when Hina sent her compliments to the chef, he always responded with a kind of gruff courtesy. _

_Sanji did wonder about that, even through his infatuated haze. When his pride had recovered sufficiently from the dish-washing spat, he even asked about it, during a quiet moment one day before the dinner rush. _

_"Use your noggin, eggplant," Zeff said shortly, the majority of his attention focused on putting the finishing touches to the truly imposing tower of tiramisu in front of him. "Hina's a Marine Captain, and her not yet thirty. When I was the height of my pirating days, she was just a gosling fresh out of the Academy, but oh that girl, already making a name for herself all over North Blue. There wasn't a pirate on those seas who didn't sleep a little lighter knowing she was on the prowl. Hina won't stop 'till she's sitting with all the other fat geese up at Marine Headquarters. Ambition wired into her bones, that's her." _

_"That's good, isn't it?" Sanji said, trying hard not to sound coaxing. "She's got a dream. You like people with dreams." _

_Zeff snorted, even as he very carefully dusted a coat of cocoa powder onto the top layer of the tiramisu. "You're not listening. I said the Captain was _ambitious_, not a dreamer. _You're _the one with your fool head up in the clouds all the time." _

_"What's the difference?" _

_"People with ambition want to stay alive. Because it's all about winning, see? Being around to enjoy the reward, that's the important thing. People with ambition don't mind using other people like stepping-stones, if it'll get them a little closer to their goal. The only lives dreamers put on the line are their own." Zeff sighed, dumping the heavy breath out in a whoosh. "End it, little eggplant. The Captain won't make you happy." _

_Sanji flushed. "Don't talk like you know so much about me," he muttered, avoiding Zeff's eyes, and then hurried off to check on the fish. _

_Hina did not teach Sanji to fight, though she was renowned throughout the four Blues for her martial skills. In that respect, she made her intentions for Sanji very clear._

The day dawned cold and drizzly, which put everyone in a grumpy mood after the warmth of the last summer island. Nami and Zoro sniped at each other over breakfast. Luffy, kept in by the rain, turned petulant and clingy, which only encouraged Chopper to do the same. Sanji found that he had to either do the dishes or throttle his Captain senseless. He chose the dishes.

After breakfast, Luffy and Chopper were persuaded down to the men's quarters for a game of cards with Usopp. Zoro followed them to get started on his customary after-breakfast nap. Nami disappeared for a while, then came back into the galley with the log book, her own diary, and a pen, and sat down at the table opposite Robin.

For a few hours it was just the three of them, working in comfortable, don't-bother-me-please silence as the rain hissed into the ocean outside. It was easy to fall into the familiar rhythm of getting the ingredients ready for the day's meals (lunch, then a snack, then a separate snack for les enfants horribles, then tea, then supper, then dessert, then a night-cap). Having Robin and Nami in the galley even helped - Sanji had worked in the bustle of a fully staffed kitchen for his whole life. When he first came to the _Going Merry_, he thought it would be fantastic having an entire kitchen to himself. Then he'd turned around one day to ask Carne for his opinion on a pilaf, and found that no one was there. It was funny the things one took for granted, he'd thought, standing in the empty galley with the pilaf clutched forlorly in one hand, and the little ways one could feel terribly lonely. He'd gotten into the habit of popping out every once in while to offer Nami (and then, later, Vivi and Robin) a dish, or to delicately hint to the savages that there was food he just might be teased into giving away. It didn't exactly recreate the Baratie, but it kept Sanji from feeling like he was cooking alone.

Now he interrupted his own chopping and washing to flit to the table occasionally, offering another cup of coffee, some fruit, a taste of the chicken broth. Nami took the food absently, barely looking up from her writing, but Robin accepted every cup of coffee and tangerine slice with her usual grave, conspirital smile. Sanji really loved Robin sometimes.

The rain gave way to mere mist and a sullen lead sky sometime after lunch. Even this small change was greeted with a change of mood, as Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper dashed out with whoops of glee to continue their activities above deck. After some restless shuffling of her things, Nami stood up and said she was going to check on her tangerine grove.

It was quiet for another hour.

And then there was the sound of Nami being truly enraged. From where he was at the counter, Sanji gave a little jump, nearly slicing off his finger, and Robin paused with the coffee mug halfway to her lips. Both of them turned their heads to better appreciate the way Nami could pack fury, frustration, exasperation, and long-suffering despair into a single scream. "Just what in all four Blues are you doing!"

- - - - -  
**notes:** Just what are they doing? Who knows? Well, I do, but that's beside the point. I was going to continue in a single chapter, but it got too long and I'm not sure I like the same-chapter switch between drama and humor(ish), as in Zoro's romp with the Baby DenDen. I think I prefer the alternating drama-general chapters, like Chopper's. Whatever.

We haven't seen a lot of Hina in the manga (that is, so far she's not a recurring supporting character like Smoker.) I built a lot of Zeff's description of her from the same SBS that mentions Hina's age. Oda writes something like "The fact that Smoker and Hina have risen so far in the Marines at such young ages means they are very skilled and powerful." I think that Smoker, though rising in rank, doesn't care about or for authority and ambition, whereas Hina seems to very much. In a healthy way, not in a delusional crazed Spandam way. Uh, yeah. That's my way of saying I like Hina a lot and I hope we see more of her in the future. (psst! Review! Thanks! - the management)


	7. unmentionables

**notes:** Volume 42 came out yesterday! Oh, the unrestrained joy. Probably you all noticed the first time around, but: (Zoro + Usopp) + handcuffs one hell of a comedic team. Sometimes I just live for Zoro's facial expressions. Anyway, on with the chapter, which I attempted to make funnier than the last one.

**"Unmentionables"**

"We're swabbing the deck, like you told us to," Luffy's voice came floating back, all innocence and injury.

We, eh? Sanji was willing to bet good money that he knew just who 'we' were.

"And just what do you think you're swabbing the deck _with_?"

There was a pause, during which Sanji wondered what they were swabbing the deck with, and if it was any different from what they _thought_ they were swabbing the deck with. Considering it was Luffy, it was a fair distinction to make. Finally, Luffy's cautious reply: "Is that a trick question?"

"No!"

"You did say the laundry needed doing," Usopp's voice piped up. Sanji could just imagine him with his hands in front of his face to ward off a Nami Attack, knees knockong together in trembling defiance. "We just thought we'd kill two birds with one stone, sort of thing."

Oh, God. They were swabbing the deck with laundry-related materials? Sanji quickly ran down a mental list of what they could be using. Shirts. Pants. Ties - no, scratch that, Sanji cleaned those himself and he was pretty sure Luffy didn't know where they were hidden. Lacy unmentionables. Sanji shoved _that_ thought out of his mind in a hurry, though not without a slight flush, and could not resist glancing over at Robin. The archaeologist was smilng slightly, eyes only half-on her book. She was clearly amused.

"Oh yes?" Nami was yelling, clearly far less amused. "And when have _you_ ever done laundry? When have you _ever_ done laundry? Who do you think is going to have to wash all of this? Oooh, I can't even -- Sanji!" Nami stormed into the galley, a murderous gleam in her eyes.

Sanji scrambled hastily to his feet. "Yes, Nami my goddess of destruction?"

She didn't even crack a smile, though Sanji could see Robin give a little chuckle as she got the joke. Nami jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Deal with this," she ordered, then flounced back out the door and down the stairs. Sanji heard the door to the storage deck slam as Nami retreated into the privacy of her room.

"Miss Navigator seems especially out of sorts today," Robin observed.

"You think so?" Sanji asked distractedly, already halfway to the door.

Robin chuckled. "She usually enjoys dealing with Mr. Captain and Mr. Long-Nose herself, don't you think? It seems to be her way of playing."

"Oh, Robin darling, you're always so observant!" Sanji hadn't thought, and was slightly uneasy that Robin had noticed this about Nami's complicated nature with such apparent ease. He hurried outside.

Oh, God.

"You're swabbing the deck with _socks_!" The words exploded out of him so hard that the cigarette almost fell out of his mouth.

The deck looked like one of Usopp's experiments gone horribly wrong. Zoro was sleeping against the side - that wasn't unusual. Everywhere else, though, socks lay in soggy piles or hanging limply half out of buckets. The lower deck was a mess of soap and dirty gray water. And in the middle of it all stood _les trois sauvages_, each with socks tugged over hand or hoof and looking extremely pleased with themselves.

"The laundry needed doing," Usopp repeated, hoping to find a more sympathetic audience in Sanji.

"So we decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater," added Luffy happily, and was rewarded with a wet, woolen smack on the head.

"Kill two birds with one stone, moron," Usopp hissed to his captain.

Sanji could feel his temper unravelling as quickly as Nami's always seemed to. "Laundry and cleaning the ship," he said through gritted teeth, "are mutually exclusive activities. _Either_ you clean the deck _or_ you do the laundry. They are not things you can combine!" By this point he was shouting, and seriously considering knocking their young, stupid heads together.

Luffy and Usopp were nudging Chopper from either side, and finally pushed him forward. He stood at the edge of a puddle, pink socks dangling from his hooves and looking as terrified as a sacrificial deer. "If - if - if," he stammered, then gathered steam, "if you want us to do all the work, you'd better get used to us doing it our own way!" Chopper puffed his chest out defiantly at Sanji for a second, then gave a squeak and ran to hide behind the mast - the wrong way 'round, as usual.

Sanji ignored him and instead advanced along the upper deck towards the stairs. Luffy was watching him with unblinking interest, but the sniper looked about ready to join the doctor at the mast.

"We have mops," Sanji growled. Usopp fled.

"Yeah, but those aren't as fun -" Luffy began, clearly having prepared his defense long ago.

Sanji brushed his answer aside and moved on to what he considered to be the main point. "And those are _my_ socks!"

"We're not using just your socks," Luffy said, very injured. "We're using my socks too." He held up his arms, encased up to the elbows in black wool, as proof.

Sanji ran a hand across his eyes in complete exasperation. _I'm never having kids,_ he thought. _Just never, ever having kids._ "Luffy," he said aloud with as much control as he could muster, "you don't wear socks."

"Oh!" Luffy brought one arm around to look. He burst out laughing. "You're right! These are Zoro's socks. I _wondered_ why they were so big!" He stretched his face a bit and did a fair imitation of the swordsman's habitual scowl. "Rarh. My socks are full of manly fighting spirit!"

From his koala-like perch at the mast, Usopp managed to collapse into giggles even as he quavered in fear at the same time. Chopper pulled his face around the mast to shout, "If you want us to swab the deck with socks, you'd better get used to us using whosever socks we damn well want!" and then ducking back again.

"But I _don't_ want you to...oh, never mind." Sanji scratched his head and surveyed the damage. Luffy had his arms stretched out stiffly in front of him like two black elephant trunks, and was advnacing zombie-like towards Usopp and Chopper, who were clutching at each other and shrieking in glee. The entire lower deck was still littered with soggy footwear, that damn mosshead was sleeping, oblivious, to the whole thing, and the ship wasn't any cleaner.

Ah, what the hell. It seemed like a waste _not_ to.

Sanji lit up a cigarette and took a long, soothing drag. "Children, please." He descended the stairs at a much calmer pace. "Let me show you how it's done."

Ten minutes later, Nami made her way above deck to see what all the quiet was about. She found the deck mercifully clear of socks, but the air suspiciously clear of laundry lines. Sanji, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper were clustered at one spot of the deck - coincidentially the very spot where Zoro liked to take his naps - and giggling quietly. They appeared to be working together on something. Alarms began to go off in Nami's head.

"What in the world are you all doing?" she demanded, striding over to them. "Sanji, I thought you were going to straighten things out, not play games -" She stopped as the four boys straightened up, identical grins decorating their faces.

"Behold," Usopp declared, sweeping an arm to the snoring figure behind him. "We present Roronoa Zoro, legendary pirate hunter and master of Socktouryu!"

Nami gaped. There was one black sock tied over the bandana on Zoro's arm. There was another black sock tied around his head. A sock that used to be white had been thrust sideways in Zoro's open mouth. A string of socks encircled his haramaki. And finally, three socks - one white, one black, one an indeterminable shade of grime - were hung with great care over the hilts of Zoro's swords, swaying cheekily in the breeze and within easy reach. The only part of Zoro not covered by socks were his feet.

Nami looked from the besocked Zoro to the grinning faces of her crewmates, and back to Zoro, and finally did what Sanji had hoped she would do: she laughed and laughed until tears came out of her eyes and she clutched at her stomach.

Luffy was in much the same state, the hard work of holding back his enjoyment finally rewarded as he rolled about the deck gasping. Chopper and Usopp, who were much more prudent of mind, began taking steps backwards as laughter overtook them as well.

This turned out to be a good move, because at that moment Zoro woke up from his nap. He looked down, up, and around, and was very unhappy with what he saw.

The next few minutes were filled with screaming and pounding of feet on wood.

"It's the Demon Sock Hunter Roronoa Zoro!"

"Watch out! When he ties the black sock around his head, it means death to his enemies!"

"He's using the One Sock Style attack! Chopper, get off my head!"

"Stop laughing at my socks - swords! Dammit!"

It all ended with Usopp and Chopper hiding up among the rigging, screaming when they weren't giggling and gasping for breath when they weren't screaming, Luffy up in the Crow's Nest, Nami in her tangerine grove, and Sanji sprawled on the deck, managing only to lift up a leg in feeble defense as Zoro attempted to beat him senseless with a now sockless Wadou. Robin came out of the galley to watch, the familiar half-bemused, half-delighted smile playing about her lips.

When the latest Zoro-and-Sanji spat did not promise to get more interesting, Luffy called down from his misty perch in the Crow's Nest, "Nami, which way is the Log Pose pointing? Are we going to reach an island soon?"

Nami did not reply right away. If Sanji raised his head from its current position on the floor, he could just make out her form, standing very still amid her tangerine trees.

Seemingly oblivious to her silence, Luffy went on blithely. "I hope it's another winter island. Or an autumn island. We haven't had a lot of those. With lots of treasure, too! Man, Nami, I'm really starting to see why you like treasure so much. Finding all that gold in the big snake's stomach was _so cool_! And - Nami?" Luffy tilted his hat back and blinked down at his navigator. "Where are we going? Where are we?"

"You don't need to know that!" Nami snapped, and abruptly started for the stairs.

"I think I do," Luffy said, looking bewildered as the rest at Nami's sudden change of mood. "I _am_ the Captain."

But Nami had already disappeared inside the hold.

The remaining Straw Hats slowly stood up or disentangled themselves from ropes. Quietly, they all began to do the ship's chores. Zoro helped Luffy clean the deck with mops. Usopp fetched the laundry bags from the men's quarters. Sanji went back into the galley with Robin to finish the day's meals. The Sock Game was over.

Over supper, they found out the reason for Nami's bad mood: the Log Pose was pointing down.

- - - - -  
**notes:** Heavens, the beginnings of a sustainable plot emerge! The direction of this fic has ended up very different from when I first conceived it. When I first started the fic (my first), I was much less familiar with the series and its characters, having only started reading it a couple of months before. The way I'm writing and thinking about the characters has changed (for the better, I hope!), so that the first few chapters now seem meandering and shabby. So my apologies for slow start and the misstarts, and thank you for reading this far. As always, comments and criticism are welcome and appreciated.


	8. drink hot chocolate

**notes:** While this whole fic will assume knowledge of events through Skypiea, this chapter in particular contains **spoilers** and forshadowing of future events. If you don't like spoilers or forshadowing, uh...sorry!

**"In the Event of an Emergency, Drink Hot Chocolate"**

"But I don't understand."

They were all sitting around the galley table, the supper dishes uncleared and crusting over as they stared at Nami. The orange-haired girl, for her part, was looking steadfastly down at her plate. The flush in her cheeks was both sullen and defiant. Luffy's words weren't angry, or even complaining. He simply sounded - and looked - bewildered. "You knew the Log Pose was pointing down," he continued, "and you weren't going to tell us until it'd set?"

Nami said nothing.

"What were you planning to do?" Zoro asked, his voice harsh. His arms were folded in the way that meant he was particularly displeased about something. "Keep sailing us around in this fog until the Log Pose pointed in a direction you liked?"

Sanji wanted to snap at him, if only for the sake of reestablishing normalcy. He didn't like the misery on Nami's face, and he didn't want to face the feeling that something was wrong. This wasn't like Nami. The tension in the room wasn't like anything the crew had ever felt. Something was wrong.

Nami lifted her head and spoke before Sanji could get a proper handle on his thoughts. "No," she said. "I was going to wait until the fog lifted, then make for the next island."

"But the next island is _down_," Luffy pointed out.

Nami shook her head. "There's another one. It's visible from the last island. The people in town pointed it out - you should have seen it the day before yesterday, when we first set out..."

"I saw it," Chopper piped up. His brow wrinkled. "But I thought it was where the Log Pose was pointing..." His voice trailed off as realization set in. "Oh, Nami!" he said in dismay. "You weren't!"

"You were going to take us to the other island," Usopp said, picking up on Chopper's train of thought, "and wait until the Log Pose set, and then wait until the Log Pose set _again_, and pretend we were supposed to be there for an extra long time." He looked at Nami with a mixture of awe and betrayal. "That's the evilest thing I've ever heard in my life!"

"But, Nami, _why_?" Luffy said. It proved to be the main point after all. "What'd be the point of sailing the Grand Line if we skipped islands, and we've _never_ not gone to an island, and you've _never_ not told us about -"

"I don't want to go down!" Nami burst out.

Taken by surprise, Luffy stopped his unhappy babble, and they were back where they'd started - staring in bewilderment at their navigator. "It'll be horrible," Nami went on. "It'll be like Skypiea, and I don't want to go."

"But Skypiea wasn't horrible," Luffy objected. "The clouds were so cool, and Usopp got those neat dial things, and we made new friends, and I rang the bell for that Mister from North Blue. It was fun! Right, guys?" He looked around the table for support.

Skypiea, fun? Sanji didn't know if he'd have called it that. The cooking lessons had been nice and Conis had been both pretty and sweet, but...being attacked by a forest hadn't been fun. Being electrocuted hadn't been fun. Racing desperately to save Nami, only to find that his best efforts had only stalled the danger - that had been the exact opposite of fun. And now, seeing the look on Nami's face wasn't fun, either. In fact, it seemed to Sanji that Skypiea's tourism bureau was in serious need of an overhaul.

The others seemed to feel the same way. It was a long, slient moment before Usopp ventured, "The treasure was nice."

That was, aparently, enough for Luffy. "See?" he said triumphantly to Nami. "And I bet there'll be lots more treasure at the down-island, too! There's always treasure at the bottom of the sea!"

"There is not," Nami retorted. "There wasn't the last time we went salvaging. And I don't care, even if there is. _Merry_ can't hold any more treasure, anyway. If we go down, there are going to be monsters, and crazy people wanting to kill us. Three of us can't swim, remember?"

"You don't _know_ that there'll be crazy people," Luffy said, ignoring the last part of her argument. "Robin, tell her that there won't be any crazy people and she's wrong." He turned to the archaeologist appealingly.

Nami did the same. "Tell him _he's_ wrong," she demanded.

Robin, Sanji was alarmed to notice, had lost her customary amused look. She was sitting with her chin propped up in one hand, tapping the fingers of the other thoughtfully on the tabletop. "Mr. Captain and Miss Navigator are both correct," she said gravely.

Everyone, even Zoro, stirred and leaned in just a bit closer.

"If Miss Navigator wishes to dock at the next island," Robin continued, "then she must have also heard the stories from the townspeople." As she spoke, two hands sprouted from the table at the wrist in front of her. Their fingers began to form a triangle. "There were originally three islands in these waters: Natsujima, which we just passed, Vesujima to the west, and Aeon to the north. The Log Pose progresses from Natsujima to Vesujima to Aeon. Aeon is visible from Natusjima, while Vesujima is visible from Aeon but not from Natsujima. Until two centuries ago, these three islands formed a major trade triangle. Merchants stocked their supplies at Natsujima, sailed to Aeon, and then could liesurely spend their time buying and selling between Aeon and Vesujima. However." Robin paused as the two hands growing out of the table changed their miming. Now they steepled together like a mountain.

"The island of Vesujima was actually the upper slopes of twin volcanoes, resting near a fault line. The island was wont to frequent earthquakes. Two hundred years ago, a large earthquake and the eruptions of the volcanoes occurred simultaneously. This caused the island to collapse in on itself. The island is nothing more than a crater now. The townspeople couldn't tell me much about what vegetation or animal life might be living there." Robin smiled. "No one I talked to seemed overly concerned about the incident. It seems that with the collapse of Vesujima, Natsujima has taken on even more importance as a trading post. Most people spend their time there or at Aeon, waiting for the Log Pose to set. So Miss Navigator's proposed plan is really quite common. But as Mr. Captain says, we do not really know how dangerous or safe it is to visit Vesujima. The citizens of Natsujima did not sound interested in such an idea." Having finished her talk, Robin withdrew the hands from the table.

"See?" It was Nami's turn to be triumphant. "Nobody even wants to go to a stupid volcanic crater."

"Well, I do," Luffy replied stubbornly.

Nami set her jaw. "Well, I don't. Bad things happen when the Log Pose points in funny directions. If you couldn't swim in the White-White Sea, you certainly won't make it in the Blue Sea, no matter what the Log Pose says."

Zoro snorted. He had not uncrossed his arms. "You're one to talk," he said. "I don't remember you getting fried once by Eneru up on Skypiea." There was a challenge in his voice, but for once, Nami didn't seem to want to meet it.

"You weren't alone with him," she said. The usual squabble, which Robin had so smoothy, nearly restored, had slipped out of her voice. The wrongness was back. Nami's time on Skypiea, Sanji was beginning to realize, had been a different kind of terrible from all of theirs. Eneru had not touched a hair on her body, but whatever she had been through - alone with the 'god' - had been enough to make her lose her nerve.

Even Zoro seemed to sense this. He backed down, now looking more frustrated than anything else. He didn't know how to deal with this Nami. Nobody did.

"Eneru isn't here anymore," Luffy was saying, almost angrily. "And I'm the Captain. If the Log Pose points down, we're going down."

Nami stood up. "Well, I'm the Navigator," she said. "And if I say we're _not_ going down, then we're not and there's nothing you can do about it!"

Before Luffy - or anyone else, for that matter - could reply, Nami ran out of the galley. They could hear her sandals clattering on the stairs and she made for the refuge of her tangerine grove.

"God damn it!" Zoro exploded, making Usopp and Chopper jump in nervousness. He started out of his seat. "That woman has been more trouble than she's worth on this whole journey. Even if I have to beat some sense into her -" He didn't finish his thought, but the angry, long strides he was taking towards the door said everything.

Immediately, Sanji was on his feet and blocking Zoro's way. "Leave her alone," he growled.

Zoro glared at him. "I haven't got time for your sense of 'chivalry,'" he began.

"Mr. Swordsman."

The both of them turned at the sound of Robin's voice. "Perhaps," she said delicately, "you are not the person Miss Navigator needs to see at this moment. Shall we follow Mr. Cook's advice and leave her be? There is, after all, nothing we can accomplish until the morning anyhow."

As always, her words and the quiet, reasonable manner in which she said them had a calming effect on them all. Zoro, though he didn't look any happier, relaxed his stance. Sanji felt his muscles untense, almost in spite of themselves.

They had forgotten to account for Luffy. Just as Sanji was sliding back into his seat, and Zoro was doing the same, Luffy burst out, "Stupid Nami!" and bolted out the door. His footsteps took the opposite direction of the navigator's, going down and across. The door to the hold banged open and shut.

This time, when Zoro followed his Captain out, Robin didn't stop him.

Then it was just the four of them in the uneasy silence of the galley. Sanji didn't feel like thinking anymore tonight. It was time, he decided, to take comfort in routine. Standing up, he began to move around the table, finally clearing away the dishes.

In the background, he could hear Usopp and Chopper's worried conversation.

"What should we do?" Chopper was saying. "I'd like to see every island there is, but Nami's right...if Luffy and Robin and me can't swim..."

"We could use the diving barrels again," Usopp said, though he sounded doubtful.

"There are only three of them, though."

"We could take turns..."

Chopper said sadly, "But I'd like to stay together. It doesn't seem right, visiting an island without everyone there."

They continued for a while more in this vein, until Usopp finally turned around and said, "Sanji, what do you think?"

The dishes were now soaking in soapy hot water in the sink. "I think," Sanji said, "that we could all do with some hot chocolate." He had already put the kettle on. Robin was right. There was nothing they could do until morning, and the persistent fog turned the evening air downright chilly. Making a hot drink was the best he had to offer right now. It was something to keep his hands busy, every step an excuse to focus his entire attention on something other than on what was wrong. The chocolate needed to be melted - just so. The milk needed to be frothed without boiling over. The water needed to be at just the right temperature. They didn't have marshmallows, but there was some fresh cream in the fridge. Sanji found some cinnamon twigs he'd forgotten about in a cupboard. An additional sprinkling of powerded cinnamon along the surface of the cream, and a cold sprig of mint in each cup. Perfect. The best hot chocolate on the Grand Line.

Sanji set down a mug each in front of _les miserables_ and another one by Robin. He put the remaining three cups on a tray and began carrying it towards the door.

"First watch tonight, Chopper," he reminded the reindeer, who gave an answering grunt through a mouthful of cream.

Sanji managed a smile. At least some things were staying normal tonight.

- - - - -

Nami was sitting, leaning against the trunk of one of the trees when he climbed the stairs up to the roof garden. She accepted the mug of hot chocolate distractedly.

"Do you need anything else, Nami dear?" he asked, doing his best to put more meaning into his voice than the words implied. "A blanket? A light?"

"No," Nami said. "I'm fine." She played with the mug in her hands in between sips. "Sanji...you do think I'm right, don't you? About not going to Vesujima."

He didn't know. Robin's history lesson had been fine and instructive, but they still didn't know anything. Were there people living on Vesujima? Was it a dead land? Was any of it above water? If it was under the sea's surface, could they sail the ship there like they did to Skypiea? If it could be seen from Aeon, would the people there be able to give more information? Sanji simply didn't know. All he wanted to do was to make the unhappiness on Nami's face disappear.

He said, with the utmost sincerity, "I'll stand by anything you decide, Nami. You'll never have to doubt me." But the words did not ring the way he wanted.

The face that Nami pulled told him as much. Sanji's stomach gave a lurch as he registered nothing but simple disappointment in that look. He had done it again, done and said the wrong thing. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Sanji knew what the right thing was, but he wasn't ready to face it. Instead, he waited patiently until Nami had finished her cocoa and put the mug back on the tray. Then, bidding her goodnight, Sanji turned and made his way back down the stairs.

He passed Usopp on the way, going up. The sniper gave him an uncertain smile. As Sanji went down the next flight of stairs towards the main deck, he could hear Usopp saying, "I'm scared too."

Nami gave an answering murmur that Sanji could not catch. The murmur became a stream of conversation, and there was even an occasional laugh.

Huh. Usopp. Homely, cowardly, weak Usopp who managed to do so easily what Sanji sometimes thought he wanted to do more than anything: connect with Nami. One of these days, Sanji was going to have to learn the trick.

If there even was one, his brain told him dryly. But he pushed that annoying little voice away and continued making the hot chocolate rounds.

- - - - -

He found Zoro on the main deck, leaning against the wall outside the hold. The swordsman didn't say a word as he accepted the mug of hot chocolate. Just downed the drink in one gulp and put the mug back on the tray. Sanji, who was used to his crewmate's utterly barbarian ways by now, didn't even bat an eye.

"How is he?" he said instead.

Zoro grunted. "Can't get a word of sense out of him," he said shortly. Privately, Sanji suspected this had as much to do with Zoro's natural reticence as Luffy's sulking. That didn't stop the swordsman from keeping his weight on the wall behind him light, nor from looking as alert as a hawk, or a shark, or a wolf, or any kind of hunting animal Sanji cared to name.

So it was always the stranger to see him in these moments, using his energy for so domestic a matter, his shoulders tense with worry over his unhappy boy-captain.

Sanji paused in the act of opening the door to the hold and tried, as he sometimes did, to make civil conversation. Funny how the topic of these conversations was always about the same person. Something about Nami's outburst, her fixation on Luffy's inability to swim, finally forced Sanji's uneasiness to the root of his tongue. "What would you do," he began, "if Luffy d- if he wasn't around anymore? What would you do?"

Zoro didn't seem surprised by the question. "Nothing," he replied simply. He shifted his weight and turned his head towards the door as if responding to some noise within the room.

Sanji understood. If Luffy wasn't here, there'd be nothing left in life worth doing.

"So you do get how Nami feels," he said.

Zoro shrugged. "I get her," he said. "But nothing can change Luffy once his mind's made up."

"So -- what? We should just let him do what he wants, even if he - no matter what might happen? We should just keep quiet?" Sanji stared at Zoro. He could never figure out the quiet swordsman. How was it that he of all people understood Luffy the best? How was it that Luffy trusted him of all people to understand him? "Why does he even need us?" he asked finally.

If Sanji was expecting answers, Zoro wasn't interested in giving them. After a few more moments, Sanji swore under his breath and pushed open the door. He stepped into the hold, leaving the swordsman and his maddening silence behind.

It took a few minutes to find Luffy. The boy hadn't bothered to turn on the light, and Sanji had to work from the little shafts of gold peeping down from the galley above. Finally, Sanji spotted his shape in the space between two crates. Luffy held the Baby DenDen in his large hands, turning it over and over with his fingers.

Sanji wondered who he wanted to call. His brother, maybe, or that pirate Shanks he was always going on about. Pity the Baby DenDen didn't have an overseas connection. "Luffy?" he said softly, approaching the huddled figure. "Have some hot chocolate before it gets cold."

Even in the worst of moods, Luffy never needed to be told twice when food was concerned. Sanji watched as he snaked a rubbery arm up to the tray and plucked the last mug off it. The arm wound back to Luffy's side, and the next few minutes were filled with the sounds of slurping. Sanji waited, trying not to wince at the insult being done to his craft.

Finally, a burp and a sigh. Sanji figured it was safe to put the tray on one of the crates and do a little prodding. "Nami's just worried about you, you know," he tried. Okay, more than a 'little' prodding.

Sanji thought that Luffy wasn't going to answer. He was startled when the rubber boy said, "I'm not afraid to die. So I don't know what Nami's so scared of."

How was he supposed to respond to that? So Luffy wasn't afraid to die. Then hell, that made him the only one. If nothing else, Sanji knew the edge in Nami's voice because he'd felt it for himself. The imperative to not die, the need to keep living above all else. It made you hold back, that need. If you wanted to be hurt with less, you had to fight back with less. It had been Luffy, not Sanji, who'd saved the Baratie, And even now, when he no longer felt the fear for himself, it remained as a fear for others. For Luffy, precisely because he wasn't afraid to die. He loved life so much, but he wasn't afraid to leave it; wasn't afraid to leave _them_. Sanji remembered Loguetown, looking up to see Luffy on the scaffold, smiling at his own death. The desperation of trying to reach him, knowing he wouldn't be able to, knowing his dream was about to severed along with Luffy's head. That was the thing. Sanji needed Luffy to be alive. Nami did; everyone did. Luffy had given them all the courage to dream, but he still held those dreams, up there in his straw hat and his grin. They needed him to stay, because they weren't ready to dream alone.

The words wouldn't make it past his lungs. The only thing he could manage was, "Maybe you're not scared, but that doesn't mean you should jump into the ocean every time the opportunity comes up. I don't _like_ ruining all my clothes just to fish you out, you know."

"Then you shouldn't buy such expensive clothes," Luffy replied absently. It wasn't the answer Sanji wanted, but it was a logical response. And when Luffy started making sense, it was time to start worrying.

"D'you think Nami's really mad at me?" Luffy asked abruptly, breaking the small silence.

Another question they'd never had to ask before. Being on the _Going Merry_ was like being caught in perpetual, squabbly crossfire. But arguments started, were carried out to their violent ends, and forgotten about as easily and naturally as - as - bread, Sanji thought lamely. Baking in the oven and eaten without a second thought. They'd never actally had a _fight_ before.

Now, he said, "I think she's just worried about you."

Luffy mulled this over for a bit. "I like it best," he said thoughtfully, "when we're all having fun together."

Sanji had to smile. "We all like those times the best," he replied. Bending down, he retrieved the mug from Luffy's hand before the boy could start munching on it the way he did with fish bones. As he straightened back up, Sanji was relieved to see Luffy put the Baby DenDen back on the crate. Whatever was still bothering him, he didn't need someone outside the crew to talk him through it anymore. Then Luffy stood up too, brushing dust from his pants.

"I'm going to bed," he announced. He hopped over a crate to avoid colliding with Sanji, and made his way to the door. "G'night."

"'Night."

Through the wall, Sanji could hear Luffy and Zoro exchanging some words, Zoro sounding carefully neutral and Luffy's higher voice ringing more cheerful than before. Then the padding of sandals towards the hatch to the men's quarters. Sanji waited another moment. When it sounded like Zoro wasn't moving, he collected the tray and went outside.

- - - - -

He hadn't meant to talk with the swordsman again, but as he passed by, Zoro suddenly spoke.

"He needs us to keep him from drowning."

Sanji looked over his shoulder. Zoro was smiling slightly. "The moron can't swim, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember." Sanji relaxed muscles he hadn't realized were tensed, and continued up the stairs. Above him, in the tangerine grove, he could hear Nami and Usopp still having their conversation. Occasionally he caught words like "sea monster" and "liar" and "Great Captain Usopp." That was when Sanji noticed he could see the night sky and the stars blinking down on the waves. The fog had cleared, and taken with it the wrongness. Things were going to be okay. Sanji didn't know what they would end up doing, but he was sure they could get through it together.

He pushed open the galley door to find Robin the only one in the room. Chopper had gone off, presumeably to take his turn at watch. Robin didn't say anything until Sanji had crossed the room to the sink and begun washing out the dishes.

"The fog seems to have lifted," the archaeologist commented. As Sanji made agreeing sounds, she smiled and continued, "The reason why we're all upset is, of course, that we don't know much about the situation at all. We shall have to spend some time in Aeon, if only to gather information."

"Luffy wouldn't have liked to hear that," Sanji commented with a smile.

Robin smiled back. "One does not go against the Captain," she said. "It's always best to lead him around to the point. Miss Navigator has not fully learned the trick."

"I don't think it's possible to learn all the tricks when it comes to Luffy," Sanji said ruefully.

Robin laughed. "You may be right about that," she agreed, and stood up. "Good night, Mr. Cook." With a wave of her hand, she left the room.

Then it was just Sanji and the dishes. Funny how that worked out. Chore boy, shipwreck victim, junior cook, assistant chef, chef and fighter, and it somehow all came back to the dishes. Ah, well. Sanji supposed he ought to be grateful for any constant that remained in life. He worked on, slowly and carefully, savoring the quiet finish to a long evening.

- - - - -  
**notes:** Part of what I wanted to do was explore the changes in the Straw Hats (and Nami in particular) between Skypiea, Davy Back Fight, and Water 7. I think the way they react to events in Water 7 came (partly) out of their experiences on Skypiea, so I wanted to see how they got from one point to the next. Also, I didn't want to trivialize Luffy's fight with Usopp in the canon, so I tried to keep the focus of this chapter elsewhere. Feedback on how well this was managed would be really appreciated, as well as characterizations in general. Thanks in advance!


End file.
